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28 Universities Will Participate in Sexual Assault Survey

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Fewer than half of the elite research institutions that comprise the Association of American Universities will participate in that group's effort to anonymously survey students about the prevalence of sexual assault on campuses. The association said Thursday that 27 of its 60 U.S. members and one non-member college will join the effort.

Some of the universities that declined to take part in the AAU project have said that they'll design and conduct their own surveys. Dozens of researchers and some victims' advocates also raised concerns about how the AAU was going about producing the survey.

The White House has called on all colleges and universities to conduct such surveys on their campuses. Several members of Congress have also proposed mandating a standardized climate survey so that prospective students could compare institutions to each other on student attitudes regarding sexual assault.

The AAU previously said that its survey project was, in part, an effort to ward off a federal mandate. “Our primary purpose in conducting this survey is to help our institutions gain a better understanding of this complex problem on their own campuses as well as nationally,” AAU President Hunter Rawlings said in a statement Thursday.

The association said that the following universities will participate:

Brown University; California Institute of Technology; Case Western Reserve University; Columbia University; Cornell University; Harvard University; Iowa State University; Michigan State University; Ohio State University; Purdue University; Texas A&M University; University of Arizona; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Florida; University of Michigan; University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; University of Missouri at Columbia; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Oregon; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pittsburgh; University of Southern California; University of Texas at Austin; University of Virginia; University of Wisconsin at Madison; Washington University in St. Louis; and Yale University.